Category: Student Work

BY: SAMANTHA SHEPHERD After graduating high school and deciding to go to college, I wasn’t exactly sure what I wanted to do. I was in Muncie, Indiana at Ball State University with a schedule full of prerequisites and no plan. Luckily, I soon reconnected with my lifelong love of history, and committed to a General …

BY: LUKE SKULSKI Growing up, I did not originally plan on working in the museum field. I’ve always loved museums, but I had initially planned on studying media production. In high school, however, I made a seemingly inconsequential choice. In 2013, I began volunteering at the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis. Initially, I had just planned …

BY: MCKAYLA “MIC” BUCHWITZ For as long as I can remember, museums and storytelling have captured my imagination. Whether wandering through exhibits as a child or contemplating the ways objects carry narratives of connection and transformation, my passion for preserving and sharing stories has been a source of inspiration in my life.  Over the past …

BY: MARY GLISSON Growing up, I had no idea what I wanted to be when I grew up. In high school, I chose history as my college major because it was my favorite subject. Once I started to immerse myself in history and realized how museums could make it come alive, I knew museums were …

BY: GRACIE COLLIER My career path in life has been winding, to say the least. Unlike in European countries, where youths are expected to start selecting their path and specializations even before graduation, in the US, we seem to encourage more disparate experiences, seeing where life takes you. There has always been a core interest, …

BY MIC BUCHWITZ, KYLIE BARKLEY, AND THOMAS CRAIN In the United States and Canada, thousands of Indigenous women and girls disappear and are murdered every year. In 2018, a study completed by Urban Indian Health Institute found that out of 506 cases, nearly 27% of victims were 18 years old or younger, and among the …

BY: JENNA SERVIZZI Throughout my involvement in the Museum Studies Undergraduate Certificate program, I have fallen in love with collections and the idea of working in collections. For my internship this semester, I was incredibly fortunate to have the opportunity to work with the Fine Arts and Culture collection at the Indiana State Museum. Part …

Interpreting Slavery with Children and Teens at Museums and Historic Sites, by Kristin L. Gallas. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2021. REVIEWED BY REBECCA MCGOVERN Museums can be highly emotional places. History is a brutal landscape that holds countless traumas and pains for an unquantifiable number of people. This landscape is particularly poignant when addressing the …

The Queer Museum: Radical Inclusion and Western Museology, by Erica Robenalt. Routledge, 2024. REVIEWED BY KAL DEMAREE  Authored by Erica Robenalt, The Queer Museum: Radical Inclusion and Western Museology delves into the role of LGBTQ+ representation and queer theory in museums. Through ideas of queer utopia and futurity, the book combines queer theory and museology …

Effective Diversity, Equity, Accessibility, Inclusion, and Anti-Racism Practices for Museums, edited by Cecile Shellman. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2022  REVIEWED BY KINZIE WHIPPLE  In recent years, many museums have made countless efforts to appear more inclusive, but most of these efforts have fallen flat. Museum diversity, equity, accessibility, and inclusion consultant, Cecile Shellman, took the …